To trigger a safety device of a vehicle, for example, an airbag, an inductive actuator in the form of an inductive load may be utilized. When switching off activation currents, for example, airbag ignition currents using inductive loads (for example, low-energy actuators, LEA for short), discrete freewheeling diodes are used in order to avoid having to reduce the resultant energy or voltage of the inductance in the output stages of a control unit, for example, in the form of an ASIC. In such a case, installing these freewheeling diodes in which the polarity is reversed must be avoided.